Photographer Estella Mora Lopez on Living 'Over the Hill'

I met Estella camping near Muir Beach for a friend's birthday back when we were both in high school. She came with her sister, Lolo, and I remember listening to the two of them belly laugh themselves to sleep. As time went on, I began to know Estella in reference to a small population of young people from the west side of Mount Tamalpais, from a cluster of tiny, rural towns along the Northern California coast. The wild poppies, ancient redwood forests and miles of sandy beach here are also now highly sought after real estate, nestled conveniently north of San Francisco. Estella, now studying photography at the California College of the Arts, has remained an active member of her hometown community all her life. We reconnected to talk about the photos she makes in commemoration of the land and people she loves. 

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Isabel: Hi Estella! How are you?

Estella: I’m good, how ‘bout you?

I: I’m doing good. I’m in New York, where are you at right now?

E: I’m at home in Bolinas. I was going to go over the hill with my friend Lauren but then we realized the shop we wanted to go to was closed so it worked out perfectly. And now I’m here.

I: That’s cute that you say “over the hill.” 

E: Yeah, it’s funny because I only realized that that was only a thing that certain people got a couple years ago. I’d be over the hill, or I’d be in Mill Valley, and I’d be like ‘Oh I have to go back over the hill,’ and no one understood it. 

I: Like we just said, being from over the hill is a ‘thing’ for all of the rural, beachfront communities in West Marin like Bolinas, Muir Beach, and Point Reyes. The kids from both sides of the mountain all went to the same schools, but we didn’t grow up running barefoot through the woods or playing music together at neighborhood beach bonfires. That’s a special experience to those small towns. Can you tell me about where you grew up and still live?

E: Yeah, well I grew up in Bolinas. Everyone knows everyone. Everyone in the community is an artist. We were all exposed to a lot of mediums at a really young age. A lot of the elderly who have been here since the ‘50s and ‘60s really made Bolinas what it is. I loved growing up here. I’m still growing up here. 

I: Your photos make me want to come back to California. They have this happiness and nostalgic energy to them. It’s clear from your photos that you come from a really tight-knit community and that’s what you’re capturing. How has Bolinas shaped your photography?

E: I think Bolinas draws in a lot of artists, which is one thing that I think has stayed the same. Everything else is changing but the art scene here has always been. West Marin is just full of artists, like-minded people, and free people. It is a privilege to be able to still live here. My mom went to art school so she had a big impact on what I do. My dad’s a stonemason which I think is considered an art. My grandma is an artist. It goes back. It’s been so easy for me to be able to be an artist in this community, which has made me want to keep doing it, because there’s been so much support. 

I: Can you tell me about the subjects you choose to photograph?

E: Pretty much all of my work was shot in West Marin, especially Bolinas. I kind of just take my camera everywhere I go. When I first started photography I was very particular. I needed the shot to be perfect and I needed the person to be in frame exactly how I wanted it. I was younger and I didn’t see Bolinas the way I do now. I value the friendships and community I have more now, and I think about how Bolinas is ever changing, and how it’s not going to be the way it is today in the future. I think about capturing the moments. I think about the landscapes, and incorporating the person in the landscape is something I’m interested in because I think there’s such a strong connection between the land and the person. I shoot the sky and the land a lot. It’s hard to talk about it because a lot of the time it feels like I’m just shooting whatever and then it comes out and I love the photo. But I don’t think about it at all when I take the photo. It just happens.

I: I really like what you said about capturing the relationships between land and people. I think that comes through really strongly. How have your shows gone? Who is showing up? 

E: The ones in Bolinas and West Marin have been my favorite. I think that’s why I do them so often. Most people only have a solo show once every couple years, but I’m like okaaay, let me do it a couple times a year.  Ever since I was a kid, people have known that I was an artist, and I was going to be an artist. So when I have shows in Bolinas, the same people who have watched me through school come, which is really fun. We put it in the local newspaper which a lot of the older folks read, so a lot of them come. It’s really just everyone I know, young and old, whatever. I think one of the reasons I really like doing them is because everyone gets a universal feeling from my work. 

I: What are people saying about your work?

E: We did this exercise in class where other people write about your work and people wrote ‘themes of place, youth, home, movement, simplicity, expressiveness, growth’ and I feel like those are universal themes that you see in my work that resonate no matter how old you are.

I have feelings that I was really trying to show through my work. I was having a dilemma about how to show the way I feel. That’s something I really like about having work on the walls versus social media. I mean I love posting on Instagram, but it’s so different to be with the work. It’s not so much about me having a show. I do it for the viewer, if that makes sense. 

I don’t want it to be me, me, me. It’s us.

I: Yeah, totally. It’s an exchange. It’s good to feel that your work is resonating, especially with the people who it’s all for. What’s your workflow like?

E: I have phases where I want to shoot everything and I’ll shoot for a week straight and I get the photos back and I’m so excited. In the wintertime I didn’t shoot like at all. Maybe I shot a roll of film when I travelled. But, I definitely go through phases with my art. It comes and goes. Come spring and summer I feel way more motivated to make work. I’m all over the place really, but it seems to work.

I: What keeps you inspired, in photography and beyond?  

E: Oddly enough I’d say music is a really big part of my work. Sometimes listening to certain music will make me want to emulate the music through photography.

I: What kind of music?

E: Mostly Bluegrass. The fiddle, I love the fiddle. The pedal steel guitar is my favorite. 

I: If I show you one of your photos can you name a song that goes with it?

E: Yeah I can pick one.

I: Which song is this?

E: Oh, for that one I would say that’s probably like a Neil Young song or a Gillian Welch song because that summer was–oh! Lucinda Williams! Maybe “Howlin’ at Midnight” by Lucinda Williams, because that is a song we all listened to.

I: Song of the summer?

E: Yes. It just got played and played and played and played, and I can feel it in the photograph. 

I: Ok, what about this one?

E: Patti Smith. I think that was the summer we saw Patti Smith play at the Stern Grove in San Francisco. 

I: What was this?

E: That was a paddle out which is basically a memorial that people who do water sports do. Brendan O’Connor was a big surfer and Annie O’Connor, his wife, asked me to photograph it. I don’t know if I’ve ever shown it but I like the colors and the composition. I like how you don’t really know what’s going on, and the simplicity of it.

I: Yeah, I think it says a lot with a little. I was really young but we did that for my dad at Bolinas, too, since he was a surfer. 

E: Oh, that’s really special.

I: You mentioned Bolinas has changed in your lifetime. How has that affected you?

E: When I was younger, I felt so free. Everyone would do whatever they wanted. It was like a free-for-all. The people who come here now are billionaires and just want this to be a place for them to relax. The new people who are coming in are just different people. But, the art and the traditions have pretty much stayed the same. It’s sometimes nice to bring the new people into these traditions. All of the people in Bolinas say that as long as you are putting in effort to be a part of the community, you’re good. But it’s mostly the people who just buy the houses and only come a couple times a year with their nice cars and big groups of people and use the resources–they don’t see Bolinas the way other people see it. They don’t get it. It’s nice, though, that the landscape has stayed the same. We still have all the dirt roads. We only have a handful of paved roads. All the eucalyptus are still standing, so that’s nice. It’s mostly the people and the vibe of the place that’s become different. The summer is really bad. A lot of the people who live here full time don’t even want to be here in the summer because it’s so bad. But the community is still very strong. Things are starting to come back as a lot of Bolinas is losing its soul. 

I: Communities like yours are few and far between. It's truly special. What are you working on right now?

E: I’m doing black and white family portraits. I don’t know if you heard but the park is closing down 12 of the 14 ranches on the Point Reyes Seashore. The government made a settlement with the ranches to close down at the end of the year. The majority of the workers on the ranches are Latino. I have fire behind me. It’s one I’m really excited to do because the workers haven’t been shown in any of the local newspapers. I feel like people are forgetting about the workers. 

I: You should get that published somewhere.

E: Yeah, that’s what I was thinking, maybe in the Point Reyes Light or I could have a show and donate the proceeds to the workers. I don’t know but I want to do something with the photos that benefits them.